Thursday, April 07, 2016

“We have a much more challenging mission than most universities. Most universities strive simply to be excellent educational institutions by the accepted standards of the profession. We do this at Notre Dame, and we have had great success. But we also foster and celebrate a distinctive mission to be a Catholic university, inspired and guided by a great spiritual tradition.”

Let's start with their recent decision to 'confer the Laetare Medal, an honor given to Catholics “in recognition of outstanding service to the Church and society,” upon Vice-President Joseph Biden at their 2016 commencement.'

Thomas McKenna: Your Eminence, recently the University of Notre Dame announced that it was going to bestow their Laetare Medal which is presented “in recognition of outstanding service to the Church and society,” to Vice President Joseph Biden. Vice President Biden is on record consistently supporting abortion rights and same sex marriage. Recently Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the ordinary of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend where Notre Dame is located, released a public statement declaring:

“I believe it is wrong for Notre Dame to honor any “pro-choice” public official with the Laetare Medal, even if he/she has other positive accomplishments in public service, since direct abortion is gravely contrary to the natural law and violates a very fundamental principle of Catholic moral and social teaching: the inalienable right to life of every innocent human being from the moment of conception. I also question the propriety of honoring a public official who was a major spokesman for the redefinition of marriage. I disagree with awarding someone for ‘outstanding service to the Church and society’ who has not been faithful to this obligation.”

Does Your Eminence agree with the position taken by Bishop Rhoades and could you comment on it?

Cardinal Burke: Bishop Rhoades is simply exercising his responsibility as a teacher of the faith and as a bishop who has the care of a prominent Catholic university in his diocese, and what he says is absolutely true and most commendable. I find it difficult to imagine that a Catholic university would assign its highest honor to any politician who favors abortion and who also advocates for the recognition of the sexual liaison of two people of the same sex as equal to marriage. It is even more difficult to imagine that the university would confer such an honor upon a Roman Catholic who supports these anti-life and anti-family policies and legislation. It is my hope that Notre Dame University will hear the voice of their shepherd, the successor of the Apostles in their midst, and change this gravely wrong and most scandalous decision.

Thomas McKenna: The university of Notre Dame says that it is bestowing this award to honor Vice President Biden for his public service in politics and that they are not recognizing him for his positions regarding support for abortion and same-sex marriage. What would Your Eminence respond to this?

Cardinal Burke: Well, we honor people for the integrity of their lives. Notwithstanding the fact that Vice President Biden may have sound views on other matters, his positions with regard to human life and marriage are contradictory to the natural moral law and obviously, therefore, to the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ. So, as much as one may want to praise certain positions which he has taken, at the same time one must realize that other positions are in the most grievous violation of the moral law and therefore make him ineligible to receive such an award from a Catholic university.

Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation on Monday, when the Virgin Mary said “yes” to God and Christ was conceived in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit. But at the University of Notre Dame, a number of students spent Monday night on campus listening to former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis describe the benefits for women of choosing abortion or using contraception.

During Mass on Monday, Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to open their hearts to God and to say “yes” to his message of salvation. “Mary’s ‘yes’ opens the door to Jesus’ ‘yes’: I have come to do Your will, this is the ‘yes’ that Jesus carries with him throughout his life, until the cross” he said. “Today,” he said, “is a beautiful day in which to thank God for showing us that path, but also for thinking about our lives.” The Feast was transferred to April 4 because it would have fallen on Good Friday.

Davis’ message ultimately taught students at the nation’s most recognizable Catholic university that saying “no” to God’s plan for the creation of life and to the Church’s teachings on human dignity can help women achieve worldly success.

Davis — who rose to stardom in the political world following her 2013 filibuster of pro-life legislation in Texas — ran the gamut of pro-abortion, anti-Catholic talking points during an event Monday hosted by the University of Notre Dame Department of Gender Studies. The department co-sponsored the event in coordination with the College Democrats of Notre Dame, the Progressive Student Alliance, Notre Dames, Women in Politics and bridgeND.

The Notre Dame Department of Gender Studies touted Davis’ abortion advocacy in a description of the event posted on the department’s website, calling her “a modern-day Texas heroine”...

G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “We do not want a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”

Sunday, November 22, 2015

A video interview on french television of a father attempting to console and comfort his young son at a memorial to the victims of the attacks in Paris has gone viral. At one point, in response to the boy fearfully telling the reporter conducting the interview that bad guys with guns could shoot us, the father exclaims, "Yes, but we have flowers. Look, everyone is laying flowers. That's the way to fight guns." The young boy, not convinced initially in the slightest, replies, "But flowers don't do anything." The father however insists that the flowers and the candles used at the memorial are needed to fight evil and the video ends with the young boy seemingly in agreement with the notion that candles and flowers will protect him.

Many have extolled the video. Many have been moved by the little boy's fear and the father's attempt to relieve those fears. The wife and I watched the video one day last week and all we could do was shake our heads. One can understand a father attempting to overcome his son's anxieties. What father wouldn't in some way want to reassure his son? I simply wish he'd have done i more effectively and meaningfully.

Candles at a memorial are a beautiful way to remind those grieving that darkness is temporary and is defeated by light. Flowers can symbolize and give meaning to an idea thtat beauty saves. Both should in my view point mourners toward the God who defeats evil and death in the end. Though I can respect those who found the exchange between father and son to be moving and touching, I believe the message being sent given who it is that's wreaking havoc in the world today to be misguided, even dangerous. Flowers and candles cannot protect us, not from this kind of evil.

Yesterday, thanks to Tom Zampino (who happens to blog regularly at Grace Pending on Patheos), I came across the following excerpted quote that I found relevant:

It is different now that a whole generation has been taught to think that there is no evil to resist, and no holiness to attain. The highest ambition of our new “therapeutic culture” is no loftier than the desire to “feel good” about oneself. We were solaced by politicians telling us that ISIS has been “contained” and is less dangerous than climate change. While Christians in the Middle East were being slaughtered in what the pope himself called genocide, although our own State Department refused to call it that, coddled and foul-mouthed students on our college campuses were indulging psychodramatic claims of hurt feelings and low self-esteem. They are not the stuff of which civilization’s heroes are made, and when the barbarians flood the gates, their teddy bears and balloons will be of little use.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

In a previous post Rick questioned whether we can help Syrian refugees and at the same time fight Jihadists.

Over at Ace's Place we get some answers from the Obama administration –

Advocates for resettling tens of thousands of Syrians in the US say the process is robust, thorough and extensive. But in the end the reality is you can only check people's backgrounds against the information you have and when it comes to Syrians we don't have much.

But one of the senior administration officials at Tuesday’s briefing acknowledged the limitations inherent in screening refugees from Syria, where it’s very difficult to determine something as basic as an applicant’s criminal history.

“We do the best with what we have,” the official said. “We talk to people about what their criminal histories are, and we hear about that. That’s pretty much where we are.”

FBI Director James Comey, flanked by the nation’s top intelligence officials, admitted to the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday that for some of the 10,000 Syrian refugees the administration has agreed to allow into the U.S., there will be no basis to vet them through the databases it uses to determine if they have ties to terrorism.

“We can only query against that which we have collected, and so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interests reflected in our database, we can query our database til the cows come home, but … there’ll be nothing show up, because we have no record on that person,” said Comey.

“We’ve gotten better at that over the last couple of years, but it is a time-consuming process and one of the challenges that we’ll have is that we’re not going to know a whole lot about the individual refugees that come forward.”

The "gotten better" part is important because, let's just say there's a lot of room for improvement in the screening process.

Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists' fingerprints.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

"The chant: "Tom Rochon. No confidence" echoed across campus Wednesday, shouted by at least a thousand students who took part in a "Solidarity Walk Out" at Ithaca College.

The demonstration was a response to ongoing concerns of racial injustice on campus.

Many on campus have called for a vote of no confidence for the college's president, Tom Rochon. According to the Facebook page for the event, members of the campus community will be "walking out for all the injustices students of color face on this campus and other colleges nationally. With University of Missouri's president stepping down, we demand Rochon to do the same as it is vital to fight against both covert and overt racism in all places of education and empowerment."

Sunday, November 01, 2015

And so this first conviction was to help my Catholic friends to see the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ, to show them the Bible, and to show them that in the Bible, you just accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and that's all it takes. None of this claptrap: Not Mary, not the saints, not purgatory, not devotions, just asking Jesus to be Savior and Lord.

Around that time I was dating a girl who was Catholic, and we were becoming more serious. But I knew there was no future in our relationship if she remained Catholic. So I gave to her a very large volume, a book by Loraine Boettner entitled Roman Catholicism. It's known as the bible of Anti-Catholicism. It's four hundred and fifty plus pages filled with all kinds of distortions and lies about the Catholic Church. But I didn't know that at the time, so I shared it in good faith with her. She read it from cover to cover. She wrote me that summer and said, "Thanks for the book; I'll never go back to Mass again." And I say that with a certain shame and sorrow, but I say that to illustrate the sincerity that many Bible Christians have when it comes to opposing the Catholic Church. I figured that if the wafer they're worshipping up on that altar is not God, then they're idolaters, they're pagans, they are to be pitied and opposed. If the Pope in Rome is not the infallible vicar of Christ who can bind hundreds of millions of Catholics in their beliefs and practices, then he's a tyrant. He's a spiritual dictator pure and simple. And because I didn't think he was the infallible vicar, I thought it was very reasonable for me to help Catholics to see the same thing in order to get them to leave the Church.

The only Catholic in my family on both sides was my beloved grandmother. She was very quiet, very humble, very holy, I have to admit. And she was also a devout Catholic. When she passed away, I was given her religious belongings by my parents. I went through her prayer book and her missal, and then I found her rosary beads. All of this stuff just made me sick inside. I knew my grandmother had a real faith in Jesus, but I wondered what would all of this mean. So I tore apart her rosary beads, and I threw them in this waste can. I thought of these beads almost like chains that at last she was broken free from. That was the second aspect of my own outlook: that these people might have some faith but it was just surrounded by lies, and so they needed loving Bible Christians to get them out.

Sunday, September 06, 2015

My priest this morning, during his homily, referenced ABC 20/20's airing Friday night of Pope Francis and The Peopleand I was moved by his words, so moved in fact that I made the decision to watch the show for myself as soon as I could. I finished doing so just moments ago.

It was all that Father Mike had portrayed it to be and more. You should set out to watch it yourself. It'll enhance the faith of the faithful and should give food for thought to those who might consider themselves something other than faithful.

During a “townhall” styled meeting the pope singled the nun out before the crowd.

“I want to thank you,” Francis said. “And through you to thank all the sisters of religious orders in the U.S. for the work that you have done and that you do in the United States. It’s great. I congratulate you. Be courageous. Move forward.

And then the pope, 78, said something she could never have imagined: “I’ll tell you one other thing. Is it inappropriate for the Pope to say this? I love you all very much.“

ABC and multiple other news outlets presented this little scene as if the Pope just somehow happened to spot Pimentel on a TV monitor “hiding” in the crowd and that it was all a big, heartwarming surprise. But, it is obvious that this was an orchestrated event and not spontaneous at all. Francis set this up ahead of time in order to give the USA another jab in the ribs, something he has become well known for at this point.

If you've not watched the referenced segment on 20/20, you might be excused for the kind of attitude and cynicism on display here but, if you did indeed watch it and you continue to be this disdainful, it's an indication of a hardness of heart that Christ alone will have to pierce. To suggest that the Pope's singling out of this nun during the virtual audience was anything but spontaneous is to have watched a show I didn't see and seemingly, to make things up out of whole cloth. It's a baseless and shameful charge.

But no more baseless and shameful than Huston's attack against this faithful nun merely carrying out her vocation faithfully, lovingly and diligently.

Mr. Huston, and the stone-hearted who applaud his thinking, have indicted her because she dared to see Christ in the least of these, she dared to assist those fleeing their homelands and the infestation of gangs and violence therein, she dared to set aside politics, she dared to see their humanity, she dared to be Christ to them.

In other words, this nun acted out her faith, acted like her savior Jesus Christ, and in that acting, committed the cardinal sin of offending Huston's idol, political ideology. How dare she? Who does she think she is?

But wait, there's more that offended Mr. Huston's sensibilities, more that upset his applecart of ideological idolatry.

Mr. Huston was deeply offended by the Pope's plan to use his native tongue at the Mass to be held in DC during his U.S. visit later this month:

"... in order to scold the U.S.A. over its already too generous immigration policies, Francis is purposefully giving a Mass in Spanish despite that less than 15 percent of the United States even speaks the language.

...

Next Francis has decided to rub America’s nose in its immigration problems by giving his Papal Mass in Washington in Spanish instead of English.

This is a purely political move, one meant as a slam on one of the most generous nations on the planet, one that already ranks number one in the world in the sheer number of legal immigrants is allows in, not to mention illegal ones.

Certainly there is good reason for a religious leader to speak up in the USA–what with the Obama administration’s campaign to put an end to religious liberty and to destroy Christianity–but what is the red pope doing? He’s attacking Americans for wanting to have some control over their own immigration policy and essentially calling the whole country a bunch of racists.

Instead of being a religious leader, this pope is using his position to play anti-American politics.

This pope is a disaster."

Incredible.

By speaking Spanish, the man's native tongue, the Pope according to Huston is rubbing America's nose in its immigration policies, scolding the U.S.A., slamming America, attacking America, calling Americans racists and playing anti-American political games.

By. Speaking. Spanish.

His. Native. Tongue.

With all due respect to Mr. Huston and those who find his writing fruitful and productive, his thinking on this is banal and infantile, beyond comprehension for those who think rationally.

To read the sort of mindlessness referenced into the circumstance of a nun living out her faith and the rather natural act of a Pope speaking in his native tongue, is to stretch the limits of credulity.

As is tradition with heads of State or of government, Francis presented presented a gift to the Palestinian leader, commenting: “May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you: may you be an angel of peace.”

Calling someone something and exhorting him to be that something are two entirely different things.

It's becoming a pattern it seems. Conservatives throwing stones at this Pope only to find out, once they dig a little deeper, that all is not what it seems.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

That from Deacon Greg Kandra, reacting to ABC's new Catholic bashing TV show slated to premiere in the fall. He's got a trailer up that I find disgusting and far from funny.

That this kind of garbage is allowed to air on a major network, particularly one owned by Disney, speaks volumes to how low the culture has sunk. But we can't be surprised given who the show's executive producer is.

"The most incredibly vicious anti-Catholic in America is Dan Savage. What he has said about Catholicism is so vile that Disney would never air it. To offer this malicious bigot a show is the height of irresponsibility."- Bill Donohue, President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

“Unfortunately, Dan Savage's public persona is completely opposite to wholesome role model for kids. His crass and even vitriolic disparaging of certain faiths and family values, and his aggressive agenda of promoting dangerous, deviant sexual experimentation couldn't have escaped Disney's or ABC's attention. To see the network that brought us Cinderella endorse a man like this should outrage every American who cares about our children and our culture.”- Lila Rose, President, Live Action

"Dan Savage recently made a lewd smear against Pope John Paul II on Twitter in which he accused him of being a child molester. This is sadly typical of Dan Savage, who has a history of making X-rated personal attacks. Why would Disney hire this man for one of their TV shows? And why would advertisers want to be associated with such vile attacks on Catholics?"- Brian Burch, President, CatholicVote.org

"These thugs will 'savage' Catholics for their religious beliefs, and then put on fundraisers to advocate tolerance for any other minority. This hits a new low for an industry that has sunk to the depths of depravity and religious hatred. The two halves of the First Amendment fit together. Those who claim free speech for the news and entertainment media, yet freely discriminate against Catholics, forget that there is no authentic free speech if there is no freedom of religion. The First Amendment will not stand in a society that has no respect for its citizens' religious beliefs."- Patrick J. Reilly, President, The Cardinal Newman Society

"Dan Savage has said some of the most vile and disgusting things about Christians that have ever been heard in America. He has publicly encouraged sexual violence against them and said they were deserving of death by torture. The fact that ABC would voluntarily work with such an extreme person to promote his immoral, hateful agenda is problematic in the extreme."- John-Henry Westen, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, LifeSiteNews

"Dan Savage is called a pro-gay activist but what I know of him is that he is against just about everything, including the family. Disney will likely feel its decision to base a show on his life where it hurts the most - in its deep pockets."- Father Frank Pavone, President, Priests for Life

“Dan Savage’s hatred for those with whom he disagrees is a matter of public record, as are his many vile taunts and fantasies. If ABC does give him a platform from which to further spread his venom, then let this be the end of the claim that ‘neutral’ media such as ABC just want to promote tolerance. Anti-Christian bigotry is absolutely alright with ABC, so let’s do away with the pretense that this is just about entertainment.”- Stephen Phelan, Director of Mission Communications, Human Life International

"The idea that the vulgar, insulting, outrageous Dan Savage would rate consideration for a sitcom on ABC Disney only confirms the obvious fact that, culturally, our nation is in a moral free fall. What other reason could there be for partnering with a man who has spent much of his adult life insulting God, His followers, and His Church? How low will society go before courageous Americans stand up and say enough? The time is now to raise our voices. Join us in opposing this most recent embrace of media bigotry that has no place in a civilized nation."- Judie Brown, President, American Life League Inc.

“Disney sold out years ago, but to produce a show based on the life of a radical bigot like Dan Savage is a slap in the face to Catholics across the country. The Lepanto Institute is more than happy to join in the campaign against this program. Anti-Family propaganda like this must never see the light of day.”- Michael Hichborn, President, Lepanto Institute

In Missouri, women seeking an abortion at the one open abortion-providing clinic in the state have to make two trips to the clinic, 72 hours apart: The first is to receive counseling that “includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion,” the Guttmacher Institure says, and the second after the required waiting period is for the procedure.

The Satanic Temple says that the restriction places an undue burden of one Missouri member, identified by the group only under the pseudonym of “Mary.” Late last week, the national group and the local Missouri chapter of the Temple were raising funds for potential legal costs, as well as meals, transportation and day-care costs for “Mary’s” child, according to a video posted by St. Louis Satanic Temple head Damien Ba’al.

The Riverfront Times spoke to “Mary,” who did not use her real name in the interview. She’s a 22-year-old mechanic who lives four hours away from the state’s Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis:

“I personally would have liked to have the procedure done as soon as possible,” says Mary, who’s nearly 12 weeks pregnant. “But with all the difficulties, how hard it is do this, it’s been put off for several weeks. If you’re right on the edge of the state you’ve got to go 500 miles just to get to St. Louis, and you have to make arrangements.”

As an adherent to the principles of the Satanic Temple, my sincerely held religious beliefs are:

My body is inviolable and subject to my will alone.

I make any decision regarding my health based on the best scientific understanding of the world, even if the science does not comport with the religious or political beliefs of others.

My inviolable body includes any fetal or embryonic tissue I carry so long as that tissue is unable to survive outside my body as an independent human being.

I, and I alone, decide whether my inviolable body remains pregnant and I may, in good conscience, disregard the current or future condition of any fetal or embryonic tissue I carry in making that decision.

I regard any information required by state statute to be communicated or offered to me as aprecondition for an abortion (separate and apart from any other medical procedure) to be based onpolitics and not science ("Political Information"). I regard Political Information as a state sanctionedattempt to discourage abortion by compelling my consideration of the current and future condition ofmy fetal or embryonic tissue separate and apart from my body. I do not regard Political Informationto be scientifically true or accurate or even relevant to my medical decisions. The communication ofPolitical Information to me imposes an unwanted and substantial burden on my religious beliefs. My informed consent is based solely on information you provide which, in the exercise of yourindependent medical judgment, is materially relevant to my health (excluding the present or futurecondition of any fetal or embryonic tissue inside my body) and is scientifically true and accurate. Myinformed consent is not based on Political Information.

This letter constitutes my acknowledgment that you have offered Political Information to me. I rejectthat Political Information because it offends my sincerely held religious beliefs. Please attach thisletter to any forms you are required to keep regarding my informed consent.

The doctor-patient relationship is built on trust. I trust that you will honor my religious beliefs andkeep me fully and accurately informed of my health based on science, not politics. I further trustthat you will not deny me medical care because of any inconvenience my religious beliefs maycause to your ability to provide me with your best independent medical judgment.

There's a huge part of me Tim that finds Pam's point of view troubling. I'll see if I can articulate why.

Think about the idiots recently who were stomping on the flag. Freedom of speech would suggest that they have the right to do what they did, as offensive to the rest of us as it might be. But should they?

I think the answer is clearly no.

Think of the artist years ago who dropped a crucifix in a jar of urine, piss Christ I think is what the exhibit was called... the artist had every right to put this on display but... should he have?

Pam Geller has every right to do what she's done... but... should she have?

I have to believe... to be consistent... that she should not have.

And this is where she and I part ways.

I understand her intent... I disagree with her methods.

I would care very little for those who might desecrate the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ... so I can understand those who find problems with desecrating the prophet Muhammad.

I think there are better ways to get our points across.

Much better, more dignified, ways than the ways Ms. Geller is employing.

A foreign enemy attempted to commit an act of violence against law-abiding American citizens on American soil. This was the reaction Pamela Geller expected and wanted, and this was the one she got. She is now a marked woman. That is a direct and predictable consequence of a freely chosen action. She owns that now and for the rest of her life.

There was no point to the action, but then again there’s no point to Corpus Christi or the Vagina Monologues or other works of hate and foolishness. They’re simply the emotional spasms of a dying culture. I don’t choose to communicate that way, and I think it’s wrong. I respond by ignoring it. They exercise their rights to free speech, and I exercise my right to ignore them. The vast majority of Muslims do the same.

Geller’s problem is that she’ll cheerfully kick 99% of the Muslims in the face in order to find the two guys who will kick back. That’s not really much of a strategy for winning a culture war, but right now it’s all anybody seems willing to do. You don’t stir a hornet’s nest and walk away without a few stings, even in America, even under the protection of the First Amendment. What you have to do is find a better way to deal with hornets than poking their nest.

This is a war the jihadists will win. If Western civilization hadn’t already committed suicide, we wouldn’t be facing defeat. Secularism, socialism, political correctness, sexual insanity, and demographic freefall have already written the final chapter of Europe, and I don’t see America recovering from its current death spiral. Only a healthy religion can drive out a diseased one. We’re too weak and fractured to resist for long.

We had a healthy religion, and we traded it for cheap goods, easy sex, and mindless distractions. We had the Gospel, and we gave it up for dollar stores, gay “marriage” and no-fault divorce, and reality TV. Worst of all, the people of Christ gave up the core of their faith in a sad attempt to fit in with a culture that will always hate them. Hell, at least the Indians got some beads for Manhattan. What do Christians have to show for their craven capitulation?

So, no: we’re not coming back from this. The most we can do is spit in the eye of the enemy as he bayonets us.

Tom's got more, including an update responding to those who think him to be an apologist for jihad.

I think him to be a prophet of sorts while hoping he's wrong.

God help us, draw us unto Yourself, help us defeat this enemy Your way.